


In Silence

by shadhahvar



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ancient Elves (Dragon Age), F/M, M/M, Other, Post-Game(s), technical au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7224502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadhahvar/pseuds/shadhahvar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Investigating those behind Dorian Pavus's recent (thwarted) abduction will lead Lavellan and allies on a search through parts of Tevinter's past - and one way that might lead toward preserving a chance at Thedas's future.  Or a chance to start to change the Dread Wolf's Heart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rescue

Dust rose into the air. The clank of metal bindings, the crunch of metal-plated wagon wheels on dirt and rock, the sedate clip-clop of hooves mingling with the softer _clunk_ of people shuffling along hung in the heat of the afternoon haze, strung out like the clouds in the sky overhead. Sweat beaded at the back of her neck as she listened, waiting. One fat droplet rolled down her back while the afternoon sun beat down through the foliage of the trees. There was an art to the patience behind an ambush like this, one that she'd learned ages ago. The tension in the waiting had never changed. Not even when she found that almost contemplative state, at ease and aware of the world shifting around her. Keeping herself limber with small stretches to stop muscle from seizing up.

Her eyes glanced over her immediate companion. The tall, swarthy form of the Iron Bull, grey hue of his skin an earmark of the Qunari, both the name of his people and the belief system they followed as a whole. He'd never been able to explain much of the Qun to her aside from saying it was next to impossible to explain. Their own priests dedicated their lives to attempting to understand. Before he'd become Tal-Vashoth, thrust out of the order of his people, he'd been Ben-Hassaroth. Not a priest:, but a spy, a fighter, and a liar. One who'd been broken, then been rebuilt. Somewhere along the way, in forming the ragtag band of mercenaries he lead at present, he'd found himself at the cost of the life he'd been raised to embrace.

His good eye was trained on the road ahead and below. Not because they were in the most obvious position for am ambush (they weren't, as it were), but because of who was in the care of their quarry.

It felt like hours before Iron Bull raised his hand to signal the charge. As it fell, seeming chaos was unleashed. Bursts of intense light and colour and smoke paired with an echoing blast larger than the resulting explosions sounded off behind the slaver party. Startled horses shied to the side, hauling their iron cage cargo and line of slaves along behind them. Two of the riding mages rounded their mounts after getting them under control, urging them toward the lingering smoke and sour chemical stench at the back of the slave train.

They didn't make it far. One went down with an arrow through their back, flopping over on their horse's neck while the animal in question slowed down. It's ears flicked back and forth, confused by the change in seat of its rider. The other addressed the chemical fires that burned on the road with a wave of their hand, the metal and stone of the staff at their back flashing. Just as quickly as they encased the flames in ice, the mage was set upon and dragged off their mount by two armed warriors. The last she saw of them was as they were pulled down into the fray as the Chargers hit hard, fast, and without hesitation.

Lavellan had a healthy respect for their capabilities; the mages did not. Assuming that magic would overwhelm anyone armed and trained to their own weapon-craft simply because it wasn't magical in nature was an error they were paying for in their own blood.

 _Better than paying for it in the blood of those kept tied behind_. Lavellan skirted the ridge, running the length while Iron Bull jumped down and cleaved straight down the middle from the front. From her position she caught sight of one mage darting for the unprotected line of chained slaves attempting to huddle together for protection. There was nowhere they could run; not like this, not tied together. She knew that. They knew that. The mage bearing down on them knew that.

She didn't give the mage a chance to strike. Her connection to the Fade thrummed under the surface of her skin; the magic there reacting as she called on it, pulled it and formed it into something _else_. Lightning concentrated into a ball no larger than her clenched fist hit the back of the running mage. It arced around the barrier they kept around themselves in a flash of light and scent of ozone. The concentrated lightning strike was enough to throw them off stride, an involuntary jerk backward causing their foot to drag.

She leapt down the hill, pulling on her magic and infusing it through the artificial limb she wore on her left arm. A green-white light flickered in the suggestion of the arm that no longer existed. Held within its fist was a blade equally real-but-not-quite. She slammed the point of her summoned blade through the mage's shields where her lightning had struck their back, throwing her weight behind the thrust. Both barrier and mage collapsed under the force, the light of her ethereal blade pushing out through their stomach.

Releasing her summoned blade, the mage collapsed to the ground without dragging her along with them. She flexed her artificial limb's clamps as the green-white limb dissipated, the three pronged mechanism a poor substitute for cracking knuckles. Crouching down, she pulled on the fallen mage's stave, sightless eyes staring as she pried warm fingers off its shaft. A glint of metal at the dead mage's ear caught the light, drawing her eye as she stood once more. A dragon coiled around the shell of their ear, semi-precious stone inset as an eye that caught the light and drew it inward.

 _Pretty,_ she thought, pulling her eyes aware to search for her next target. An irreverent thought before she shifted her attention to the stave itself. From a glance along the shaft she guessed it was made with a fire affiliation in mind; she put it to the test a split-second later when she slung a fire-ball forward to slam into the knees of a man attacking a Charger from behind. She sent them stumbling into a waiting blade as the mercenary turned the tables.

Lavellan didn't attempt to focus on much of anything in the fighting chaos at this range, keeping her wits about her and moving to the least protected members of their present party. There was one door barred with iron at the back of the wagon, making it difficult to see inside. The line of people who'd been marched in irons and rope behind the wagon needed her attention first. She needed to get them out of the fight, or at the very least, keep the fight from slaughtering them if it didn't end soon. She tensed, listening to the crash of metal on metal, magic on metal, the impact of an arrow into the ground nearby. Keeping her hands steady, she set to sawing through the rope where it was tied to the wagon.

The rope resisted.

Lavellan frowned, turning the knife to examine its edge. A small voice to her side spoke up; tremulous, uncertain, almost swallowed by the sounds around them.

“... They said it was enchanted, ser.”

She glanced to the young woman who spoke, shadows under her eyes as pronounced as the sharpness of her cheekbones. Human, based on build and the soft curve of her ears. Underfed. Holding her ground because she had no choice, jerking away as one of the Chargers ran by to throw themselves at the back of a mage summoning a fistful of stone.

She tugged on the rope, pulling the ring attached to the wagon taunt. “Did they say anything about the metal ring it's tied off to?”

The woman shook her head, flinching again as a magic blast roared overhead to crash into a shield. Lavellan appreciated the spark of fire that she saw in those sunken eyes; in the squaring of thin shoulders against a harsh world. The woman swallowed before she answered. “No, ser.”

“Good. Stay behind me.”

She touched the wood of the wagon above the metal ring with the oblong glass ornamentation on top of the stave. Force magic splintered wood around the metal, a sharp _crack_ that was swallowed by the ongoing chaos around them. With a pull of her clamp-hand, the whole apparatus broke free. As she had suspected, the ward keeping the rope safeguarded fell, reacting with a backlash she held off with a summoned barrier of her own. She held it in place with a narrowing of her eyes, the blaze of furious heat and light washing over her as she shielded the people at her back from its ferocity. When the magic burned out, she dropped the barrier and turned around.

“Well, now that that bit's out of the way, what's your name?”

Dark eyes flicked between Lavellan and what she held in her metal hand. The young woman swallowed, licking dry lips with an equally dry tongue. “Er... Jenna, ser.”

“Jenna.” Names were important. Grounding. She held out the iron ring and the end of the rope. “Get everyone off the line and moving back down the road. We'll help with the rest once we're done cleaning up here.” With her other hand, she extended the handle of her hunting knife.

Jenna's fingers twitched, but she reached out, taking careful hold of the rope while avoiding the metal ring. She showed even more care in reaching for the knife, eyes darting between it and Lavellan, waiting for the offer to be rescinded. Lavellan held still in spite of the shouts and pounding of feet and the scent and thrum of magic throughout the area around them.

“I'll do it. Because I want to, not... not because you told me.” Jenna paused, faltering as she clutched the rope close to her chest, taking a step back and toward another of her fellow captives. “Who – who _are_ you?”

Lavellan tipped her head toward Jenna, her superficial smile bordering on jaunty. Once her answer would have been different from the one she gave now. “The Bull's Chargers, doing a bit of clean-up work. We won't leave you undefended, but please, _go_.”

She didn't wait to see if Jenna or any of the rest listened. People had to make their own decisions, up to and including how they reacted in times and places like these. Movement in her peripheral vision had her shifting stance, whipping the stave around and bracing it against her foot as she absorbed and deflected the impact of a hired sword's swing at her thigh. Their throat was struck by a flaming light that seemed to dissipate soon after it hit, leaving charred flesh behind. The mercenary fell backward with a grunt, eyes widened in an expression of dying shock.

Lavellan recognised that style. Dalish was covering her from up on the slope. She gave mental thanks before turning back to the locked wagon, reaching out. She stopped herself from taking hold, tilting her head to the side for a better glimpse of the rune inscribed on the side of the lock.

Interesting. She hadn't expected that.

Shifting the liberated stave to her good hand and called on the energy of the Fade once more, her left arm transformed into an ethereal version of what once was to stab through the lock. The accompanying visceral _lurch_ as the associated magics were penetrated and broken in short order had her near rocking on her feet. Pulling the excess energy being released toward her, Lavellan directed it through and out, pointing the stave up and releasing that collected energy overhead. It would have made for an interesting series of fireworks to watch if she weren't so focused on not being burned away by the magic itself.

Yet nothing was infinite, and even the somewhat clever magics of what she presumed were the magisters of the Tevinter Imperium hadn't managed to invent an endless supply of energy in a self contained environment. The lock crumbled in her clamp-hand as she let her own grasp of the magic loosen, whispers from the Fade quieting as she distanced herself from their realm. She felt exhausted, but determined; even when she found a familiar grey, scarred arm gently pressing down on her good arm. She lowered the stave with a blink and a short, sharp sigh, turning to regard the door.

“Pull him out.”

Iron Bull grunted, reaching out and opening the door. Or as it turned out, tearing the door off its hinges and nonchalantly setting it to the side, dusting his palms off with an absent motion as his keen eye penetrated the darkness. Several figures crouched in the shadows, one breathing in exhaustive pain from where they sat propped up in the far corner. In front of that one another individual inserted themselves, bound wrists held up in front of them at shoulder level, tense and facing forward. Another figure was tied to the facing wall, given enough leeway to move their limbs, should they seek to do so, but not allowed to bring their hands together.

“Ah. Dare I hope this is a dashing rescue?” The voice of the tied man was dry, fading toward the end of his comment. It was met by a chuckle from Iron Bull, though anyone who saw the tension in his shoulders heard nothing of amusement in the sound.

Iron Bull strode forward, a looming figure who had to turn his head to allow his horns past the door. Two muffled _cracks_ later, paired with the murmur of indiscernible conversation, he emerged with someone in his arms, careful and sure of his movements. The dark haired man looked remarkably well considering the situation. If one ignored the dark smudges under his eyes. If one ignored the red chafing at his wrists. If one ignored his apparent weakness, lacking much of the strength to hold his head up on his own.

Still remarkably well for a victim of an abduction.

He cracked open his eyes and grimaced as the light hit him, muttering something about “turning down the brightness of the dratted sunlight,” and Lavellan knew he'd be all right. Not today, and not tomorrow, but as the Iron Bull carried Dorian Pavus through the wake of the destruction the Chargers had wrought, she knew one day he would be. He _had_ to be. She couldn't allow any other possibility into her mind.

“Krem, finish things up here and direct the newly freed like we have the rest. Boss,” Iron Bull said, turning his head to catch sight of Lavellan with his good eye, “There's two more inside. Might want to handle them yourself.”

She quirked up her eyebrows. “Is that so?” Iron Bull wasn't staying around to answer her rhetorical question. She breathed in, hearing Krem take over the crowd. She grimaced, squinting as she looked inside again, after the two huddled in the back corner. If Iron Bull was directing her to look into them, she had a few guesses as to why.

“Hello?” One of the figures moved, no further response forthcoming. She stepped up into the wagon with a grunt of effort, leaving the stave leaning against the wood by the door-frame. She could feel something dampening her connection to the Fade as she moved forward, unpleasant and almost greasy, sliding against a sense that only fellow mages seemed to possess. It was wrong, and that was more disturbing than not. Little wonder Dorian had been having difficulty in this environment; as a mage himself, she could imagine prolonged contact would have left him sick regardless of his usual state of health.

As her eyes adjusted, she could better make out the details of the interior: a hard bench, manacles, more carefully woven rope bindings. One young man – the sharp point of his ears visible through waves of tangled light hair – crouching by the side of another elf breathing shallow where they were propped up in the corner. Their _vallaslin_ , the blood writing tattoos all adult Dalish wore on their face, marked them as calling on June's favour. Their eyes weren't open. Their colour was pale enough to be noticeable even in the shadows.

“How long have they been like this?”

The unmarked elf responded, expression almost kept neutral. He ended up looking strained instead. “The last few days. There's no sign of injury, no broken bones, no sign of bleeding on the inside that I've been able to find.” He stopped, looking back to the unconscious elf. He positioned himself to make it difficult for Lavellan to get closer; not trusting her anymore than she would, in his position. If anything, she could hope that the points of her own ears and her unmarked face might work in her favour for once. She didn't look like a Dalish elf with her face bare.

“I see. We'll get them out of here, see what our healers can do. What's your name?” She wondered if he would answer, listening to the strained breathing of the ill elf, the mixture of unpleasant scents inside the wagon at least not carrying the taint of rot and decay. Yet.

“Promus.” Curious. She found herself frowning, trying to examine him more closely in the shadows. Promus was a Tevinter name.

“I'm Lavellan, Promus. What do you say to helping me get your friend out of here?” He jerked his head back her way at her introduction, eyes widening a fraction. He knew that name. She half expected him to say something about it.

He didn't.

“I'll need my hands free.” He held up his rope bound wrists.

It was the last thing either one of them said before Promus took over lifting the unconscious man and carrying him out. It was a surprising show of strength from someone kept confined in cramped quarters, likely underfed and under-watered, certainly under exercised. He couldn't have been there long. _Yet something else to keep in mind, if it'll be relevant later on._

Lavellan preceded them outside of the wagon, stepping down and reaching out for the stave as she looked for Krem. She spied him off to the left, coordinating a few of the Chargers and dealing with stripping down usable supplies from the slave caravan. Keeping everyone light and ready to move also meant liberating or killing the horses; few of them found worth in killing the animals, though they were stripped down of their fancy saddles and left with blankets and simple straps instead.

She approached, nodding her head back over her shoulder once she saw Krem's attention shift over to her. “One of them's injured. Might need healing. They won't be walking far like this.”

Krem glanced toward the pair of elves, expression neutral in thought. After a moment he gestured toward one of the Chargers. “Darling can lead them on one of ours. Are they strong enough to last until nightfall?”

Lavellan thought back to how the unnamed elf had looked and sounded in the wagon. She frowned; what choice was there in the end? “We'll have to chance it.”

He nodded, turning away to speak with Darling, a robust man somewhere in his thirties who favoured fighting with a broadsword. No one really knew his name. Darling was what he called his sword.

She moved closer to Promus, directing him and his burdened arms toward Krem and Darling. “Can you ride?”

He grunted, inclining his head toward her. The strain in his shoulders as he carried the other elf toward the waiting men was one that made her frown. Still, if he could make it, better to allow him to do so. Coddling only made people feel less capable overall.

She turned her attention to the rest of the area. People were moving all around her, tending to the injured, or hauling the bodies of the dead for burning. Dalish and one of the dwarven members of the Chargers were working on starting pyres burning for the bodies. Too much of a chance for some enterprising spirit or magister to animate the dead to use against them to allow their bodies to remain untouched.

Lavellan considered offering her services in assistance, but she itched to be away and catch up with the Iron Bull and Dorian, and the Chargers were capable on their own. She wasn't strictly necessary. Looking back to Krem, she noted Darling had both elves mounted, the blond one holding the dark-haired one upright and leaning back against him as Darling lead them both down the road. A second horse trailed behind, reaching out to nip at the tail of the horse in front of it and earning an annoyed swat of its tail in return.

“Anything I can help with here?” she said once she reached Krem. He half turned, lips thinning as he considered the possibilities, then shook his head. Behind them both, the pyres started to burn.

“We're done once we dump the wagon.” He gestured toward the wagon that had been used to imprison Dorian and the elves. “Injuries have been tended to, everyone's been directed to head out in a few different directions. We'll be heading out before nightfall to put distance between us and this place. The Chief probably needs you more than we do now.” He shot her a grin, eyes serious. They'd honestly expected to find Dorian being contained on his own, if he was still alive. Figuring out if this was just a political move against his and Maeverus' party or not meant speaking to Dorian about what had transpired over the course of his abduction. “Feel like bringing him one of our new friends?”

She raised an eyebrow as he grinned. “Waste not, want not, and leave less for those following you to use to stab you in the back.”

He nodded, calling out to another of the company, making a scooping gesture for them to bring in one of the horses that'd been stripped of its finery. _Of course_. She shook her head, but accepted his cupped hands as a step up. Holding the reins and the mane of the gelding in hand as she leapt up, she threw her leg over the horse's back and settled in, straightening as she found her seat. Krem handed her purloined stave up toward her. She started to shake her head, then paused, reconsidering. In the end, she held out her good hand to take it, using her clamp hand to keep the reins in place at the horse's withers while she slung the stave across her back.

“ _Ma serannas_. I'll let Iron Bull know things are about finished here.”

Krem gave her a small salute, calling out to her back as she nudged the horse into walking with her knees, “You'll both be hearing when we're done! Part of why we'll need to head out so quick...” His mutter ended in a sigh. She empathized with his situation, but even as she turned the horse up the embankment and encouraged him to walk up at an angle, her mind was on Dorian and Bull. Ensuring her friend was all right was important. So was hearing what had transpired leading up to and during his abduction, and if he was in a state to answer another question, ask him about a lead she'd been following that pointed into the heart of the Silent Plains.

She nudged the horse into a trot, posting as they headed down a deer trail toward camp. The heat felt less oppressive in the dappled shadows of this foreign forest. For a moment, if she closed her eyes and breathed in deep, she could almost imagine a different time, traveling a different forest on this part of the continent. Back when she'd simply been First to the Keeper of the Lavellan Clan.

Her eyes opened, squinting against the sunlight as the shadows broke free from around her. Life moved forward. Expectations changed. Now she was in a land that claimed to have been responsible for the first fall of her people, searching for allies against her friend and lover who'd lived before the fall of the Elvhen. The nostalgia of the forest was warming, but it passed, and it would settle as the sun did, tucked out of sight on the far side of the sky.

Lavellan nodded to one of the posted scouts as she headed into camp, directing her unfamiliar mount with her knees and thighs. By the time she had dismounted and tied her mount next to Iron Bull's hastily reassembled tent, she was already tucking that nostalgia away. Warm air, dust, the scent of the forest: and Solas.

She rapped her knuckles against the taunt fabric at the front of the tent.

“Really I don't know why anyone bothers knocking around here,” said a familiar voice. Lavellan smiled, giving a shake of her head before pulling aside the fabric and glancing in to find Dorian sitting on a folded bedroll. He'd already changed clothing, using a canteen of water to slick his hair back off his face. It did little for his growing beard or the dark circles under his eyes, but it was Dorian, and she knew the importance of reclaiming little things to make one feel more in control of themselves and the situation.

“Because even those of us with more barbaric roots have some appreciation for manners, I suspect. Glad to see you, my friend.” She set the stave on the ground before she crouched down, reaching out to clasp Dorian's shoulder. She looked for any sign that he'd prefer her not to touch him. He kept steady, and her hand settled on his shoulder, giving a small squeeze. “I'd begun to miss the sound of your voice. I'm sure you're utterly surprised.”

There was something dark in his already dark eyes, flashing through as he let his hand come to rest on her forearm, scoffing. “Hah. I know I'm supposedly impossible to live with, but I'm certainly entirely impossible to live _without_. According to those with tastes. _Impeccable_ tastes. There's an unfortunate number of my countrymen who aren't qualifying as having anything appreciable for tastes these days.” He sighed, only a touch melodramatic, moving his hand to run it through his hair. The raw red lines around his wrists caught her eye once more.

“A sentiment I can sympathize with.” She gestured for him to show her his wrist, careful to keep her clamp hand closed. “If only common sense were in any sense common.”

He hesitated before he extended his arm, allowing her to pull his sleeve back. No evidence of damage to circulation, but the ropes used for tying had been insufficient for their task at any length of time. Her right hand hovered over his skin while she reached inward, coaxing the thread of magic she found there into growing, taking a form and shape as she wished. Healing energy was a warmth that settled around in a faint, spring-green light between the palm of her hand and his wrist., so strongly collected in this moment.

“Common sense will never be common, or else every political empire would simple crumble into dust. Arguing for the sake of progress and common sense is also one of the least sensible, most necessary deeds. I could have done that myself, you know.” He relaxed in degrees, eyes on his wrist, watching the redness quiet down into healing pinks. There'd been more than chafing there. Infection, or the start of one.

She breathed out in a soft snort, shoulders hiking up in a half-shrug to hide her sudden urge to frown. “I could use the practice.”

Light footsteps outside had Dorian glancing up, eyes narrowing a fraction. Lavellan finished addressing the irritation of his wrist, jostling her prosthetic arm to encourage him to take his arm back and give her the other. If they were hearing footsteps approaching them in this tent, right now, in the middle of a moving camp, it was because the one approaching wanted them to hear. Iron Bull's voice reached them both from the front flap.

“Good to hear you're back, Boss. If we're all dressed and ready for semi-appropriate company, I need to get this tent stowed.”

“How can we _all_ be dressed when you insist on walking around half naked?” Dorian scoffed, waving off Lavellan's hand as he pushed up to his feet. She reached for the stave, standing straight while Dorian was forced to duck his head forward. “Let alone these claims about _semi-appropriate_ company. I'm quite sure none of us qualify as appropriate in the first place.”

He straightened once he pushed through the tent flap, wavering a bit on his feet and squinting in the afternoon light. His eyes were drawn upward to Iron Bull as the taller man chuckled. The amusement didn't quite make it to his eye, but he was trying, and he was letting go of the stress of recent events much as Dorian was trying to do the same. He clasped his lover on the shoulder, shrugging without a hint of apology. “Depends on what you're calling appropriate. We're all more than tavern appropriate.” With a squeeze of his hand, he let go; not before Lavellan saw Dorian's hand come up to rest over Iron Bull's in quiet, mutual reassurance.

“Speaking of getting things stowed, Krem said he was about done down at the ambush site.” She stepped around to Dorian's side, surreptitiously examining his face in the better light. He swayed some on his feet, pale but determined. She hooked her good arm through his, Iron Bull moving by them both to duck into the tent and pull out the small pack and bedding left inside.

“Figured that might have been what the new steed's about. We won't be getting far tonight taking the worst of the affected with us, but with any luck, we'll be long gone by the time their people come looking.” He re-emerged, slinging pack and tied off bedding over a shoulder as he stood. He walked the perimeter of the tent, pulling up stakes as he went. “They were running high on mages sitting pretty on this shipment, low on muscle. They weren't expecting anyone to be willing to face those odds.”

Lavellan felt Dorian stiffen, cursing under his breath. He leaned a little her way when they stepped forward and turned around, watching Iron Bull make quick work of the tent.

“I'm insulted. I'm at _least_ worth a few more muscle bound idiots than the number I saw lying around before you whisked me away.” Jesting aside, a more serious expression slid across his features. Dorian didn't particularly enjoy being serious. He'd picked up the knack for it over the last few years, much as he had also deliberately not lost his sense of humour (or sense of inherent superiority, though he _was_ trying to work on that, too). It didn't mean he had to like it. “Much as my politics have met with a certain resistance in the Magisterium, most those in opposition stick to the traditional assassination attempts. Rigged duels, poisons, knives in your back and the like. All very _civilized_ , I'm sure.” He waved his hand, dismissing his own statement with the wry sort of humour he could pull over himself when needed. “There was none of that here. I didn't even get the _name_ of anyone involved in arranging this, and they clearly wanted me alive _somewhere_. Not to say I would have stayed that way for long, but am I correct in presuming no ransom notes were sent?”

He gave her a hopeful look. She could only give a small shake of her head in turn. “Not a word. Mae sent us notice as soon as she knew, but it wasn't because anyone approached her.” A moment of silence while they both contemplated that fact. “No one at all has announced themselves? Not even to start gloating or soliloquizing over the inadequate foresight of your politics?”

Dorian laughed, a sharp chuff of sound that had him straightening at her side. “There was plenty of _posturing_. Worse when they stopped and brought in the two elves.” Another pause, letting a few seconds pass in consideration. “Neither of them were explained, but they were brought on, oh... a handful of days before you caught up with us? Even then, no one bothered saying who they were there on behalf of, which was unusual enough. No boasting? No bragging? You'd think them all possessing a modicum of _sense_.”

Iron Bull was folding the tent by then, packing it away as he listened to them talk. “Not so fond of a Vint who can hold their tongue.”

Lavellan frowned, though Dorian spoke first, making a dismissive motion at Iron Bull. “That's because they're usually involved in nothing respectable or sane.”

Iron Bull grunted, pulling the pack over his shoulders as he stood. “I have noticed that.” He moved toward them, eyes cast out over the almost disbanded camp. “We'll have a few riding double, the rest on foot. The Chargers can manage a long haul on foot when needed. Anyone we run across who needs the help can ride double for a while. ”

Lavellan pulled Dorian along with her as she turned back to her temporary mount, nibbling at the tree bark near where it was hitched. Dorian made a small, miserable sound at the sight of the horse. She patted his arm.

“Don't worry. I won't make you lie and tell the poor thing it's pretty.” With half an ear and an unremarkable chestnut coat, the horse wasn't worth writing home about, let alone while blowing out a thicker fur coat in ragged patches, speaking of the horse having been kept in colder climes until recent times.

“There _are_ such things as miracles, I suppose.” His voice was lower than usual, a touch slower as he spoke. The sigh that followed his attempt at humour ended as Iron Bull fell in step with them.

“Need a lift?”

Dorian started to answer, then sputtered in a pretense of objection as Iron Bull glanced down, picked him up and then set him on top of Lavellan's horse without so much as blinking. She snorted, shaking her head at the display, moving to the wrong side of the horse for mounting and politely patting Dorian's upper thigh. He broke off midway through a eloquent yet mumbled witticism to look down.

“Move back, friend. Prepared to get cozy?”

His lips quirked up into a ghost of his usual grin. “I'm considering being scandalized. Then again, I realised in present company it's all but pointless. We'll snuggle as we ride. I'll drool when I inevitably drift off. It'll be _delightful._ ” Regardless, he scooted back onto the roll of her bedding tied to the back of the saddle. Iron Bull unobtrusively held the horse steady, one hand poised to support at Dorian's back if need be while ostensibly simply resting on the horse's rump.

“We're into drooling these days? Dorian, you really _have_ let yourself go all savage.” Iron Bull grinned. Dorian attempted to scowl. He ended up sporting more of a grimace than anything else.

Lavellan mounted, settling in and taking full control of the reins while Dorian's arms slid around her waist. She was smaller than he was, but it mattered less when he felt small himself, hunching his shoulders. She smelled like dirt and sweat and little if any blood, yet she could hear him breathing in deep as he rested his forehead against her shoulder. Silent for the moment.

“We'll meet up with you again on the road?”

Iron Bull stepped back, grunting affirmation. “Not too far down, I figure. No one will be running the horses. We want them to last.” He waved them on, already turning around to shout out to the Chargers here in camp, getting the rest of them moving in well practiced precision. Lavellan gave a cluck of her tongue and dug her heels in, turning the horse's head toward the path out of camp.

They held silent until they were moving amoung the dappled light of the trees, the clip clop of their horse's hooves on the dirt kicking up little puffs of dust as they went. Dorian was the first to speak.

“It's good to see you again, my friend.” Dorian's mumbled words accompanied a brush of hot air against her shoulder. She smiled, an honest one with no one around to witness the event. Her good hand shifted reins to her clamp-hand so that she might pat his arms at her belly.

“It's only been a year or so. Better than the last time.”

He snorted again, leaving his head where it was. They both moved to create the changes they believed in; Lavellan moved now to help keep the messed up world they lived in from being wiped out of existence. Dorian worked to change the corruption of Tevinter into something genuine. They both helped each other as they could, but she was so often moving around, and he well invested in the necessary battles at the Magisterium.

“How were you even in the area, to be called on when he came charging across the Imperium?”

She hesitated, pressing her lips into a thin frown. “Would you believe that I was conversing with the Avvar group I exiled to the Silent Plains several years ago?”

He lifted his head a fraction, peering at her face from over her shoulder. That he gave up after and returned to resting his forehead on her shoulder was a testament to how little energy he had in truth. “Tell me it wasn't for the actual conversation.”

She shook her head, a small movement to not risk dislodging Dorian. “Yes and no. They had interesting stories to share, concerning their gods and the nature of the region. It's the taint of the blight that scarred that whole plain so that to this day, very little grows on it, correct?”

An affirmative sound from Dorian was all the confirmation he was willing to give. Looking at a centuries passed disaster and the cost of the Second Blight from the not-so far side of the Fifth Blight didn't make any immediate sense to him.

“Well, aside from discussing their semi-lucrative career in harvesting the plain's roses, several of their gods have been unsettled of late. Claiming that the silence is getting heavier. Their hold beast has been upset, and the animals that might migrate through the region have been studiously migrating _around_ the plains. Including the rodents. Just two sevendays past they witnessed an entire family of field mice crossing one of their pathways, heading toward the coast.”

Silence fell between the two of them once more. Certainly during a Blight the animals would leave affected regions as a matter of survival, or be corrupted for remaining, but there was nothing to indicate the same was happening now.

“They might be wiser than we know. Certainly any war effort demands food for its soldiers, so pressing North isn't the worst idea they've ever had.” The irreverent tone was moderated after a moment, Dorian lifting his head once more. This time it didn't settle back against her shoulder. “The truly barbaric Avvar suspect someone's meddling around with whatever ruins are out there? It's not as if we don't hear the rumor that not everything of Dumat was _lost_ , but you can't seriously be suggesting...”

She let him trail off into silence, imagining the look on his face if she were to turn her head. Dorian was already falling back into the persona of himself that carried him through his dealings with the ruling body of the Imperium, considering the information given. Less immediately personal, it was easier to think on than what the kidnapper's goals had been with Dorian in the first place. Yet it wasn't the time or place for an in depth discussion. Not out here, moving amoung the Chargers they'd caught up with on the road, and the haggard, freed slaves interspersed amoung their number.

“I'm not suggesting anything. Even if I were, it's a discussion that can wait. I believe you were threatening me with something about drooling?” The pointed statement was met with a pointed snort on his part.

“I won't drool.”

“That's not what you said earlier.”

He informed her of just exactly how wrong she'd been about taking a facetious statement seriously as the sun sunk in hand-fulls toward the obscured horizon.


	2. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Which means we're potentially looking at people with either little to lose, gambling attitudes, plausible deniability, immense confidence, or a mix of the four.” Iron Bull inclined his head toward Lavellan, the wide spread of his horns exaggerating the small motion. “Cutting off a head of the major faction pushing for change would be appealing to anyone looking to silence those speaking out on corruption. Particularly during the ongoing attacks from the Qunari.”
> 
> Dorian let out a derisive snort. He didn't try to contradict or deny what Iron Bull said. He wasn't making himself popular with the more staid or the truly corrupt amoung the ruling body of mages in Tevinter.
> 
> “ _Abducting_ said lovely, attractive head makes it more suspect. Really, we can be _quite_ up-front with our assassination attempts. This was almost insultingly well planned, and those _weren't_ just Venatori mages.”

Well after dark, Dorian was recovered enough to join Lavellan and Iron Bull where they sat speaking with Krem in the cold of the Charger's encampment. No one had lit fires. Blankets had been shared with as many as they could, leading to groups of people nestled close for heat. A few of the tents had been set up to keep the worst of the injured and ill in slightly greater comfort. Beyond that, it looked like the temporary refuge it was in truth. There'd be precious little beyond disturbances in the dirt to mark that anyone had spent the night here come morning.

“Sleeping Beauty awakens.” Bull tipped his head and one massive horn to the side, inviting Dorian to take his seat as he stood, rolling his shoulders. Tension that'd been riding him the last few weeks was relaxed in an almost indescribable manner, though not gone. Bull didn't believe in leaving people behind. Lavellan suspected he wouldn't be fully on outward ease until Dorian was on his way back to his allies.

He glanced over to Dorian. “So. Venatori. Acting in a group. It's been awhile since they've managed that much.”

Dorian kept his feet with a grimace, blanket around his shoulders as he waved a hand at Bull. He looked better in the starlight. Most the darkness under his eyes was difficult to make out even to elven eyes like this.

“They lack any political backing after the whole Corypheus disaster three and a half years ago. You find them scattered about as they are, scurrying here and there. It's unpardonably rude they won't lie down and admit defeat already.”

Lavellan lifted her chin out of her hand. Had it been three years already? She shook her head, brushing the stray memories of those years out of the way.

“Still gives them three and a half years to coordinate with sympathizers. You know better than the rest of us what kind of resistance you've met in the Magisterium. Would any of your colleagues be sympathetic to their version of reclaiming the Tevinter of old?”

Dorian cupped his elbow in his hand, fingers of his other hand tapping on his newly shaven chin. She was under the impression he'd be pacing if he was feeling steadier on his feet.

“You know there _are_ , only not so many who want to be tied to the fallen star of the Venatori. They're as much of an embarrassment as Corypheus these days.”

Unsurprising, in her opinion, that Tevinter as a whole didn't want to identify with anyone who had supported the ancient, corrupted magister's failed bid to bring back the glory of an empire he no longer understood or recognised. She could feel Dorian's dry tone wash over her after his blithe statement.

“Which means we're potentially looking at people with either little to lose, gambling attitudes, plausible deniability, immense confidence, or a mix of the four.” Iron Bull inclined his head toward Lavellan, the wide spread of his horns exaggerating the small motion. “Cutting off a head of the major faction pushing for change would be appealing to anyone looking to silence those speaking out on corruption. Particularly during the ongoing attacks from the Qunari.”

Dorian let out a derisive snort. He didn't try to contradict or deny what Iron Bull said. He wasn't making himself popular with the more staid or the truly corrupt amoung the ruling body of mages in Tevinter.

“ _Abducting_ said lovely, attractive head makes it more suspect. Really, we can be _quite_ up-front with our assassination attempts. This was almost insultingly well planned, and those _weren't_ just Venatori mages.”

Silence fell over them, deep enough that the far off chirping of insects was audible over the shifting sounds of a sleeping camp. She imagined she could hear those standing sentry. It was more fancy than fact.

She breathed in, looking at her friend and knowing it was unlikely he had any firm answers.

She still had to ask.

“Do you have any idea who else might be involved? Was there anything you overheard, anything you saw...?”

Dorian gave in and started pacing. Three steps to the left, then a stop, pulling the blanket over his shoulders close as he might have a cloak before repeating the process back to the right.

“I wish I could say there was, but I was rarely brought out during daylight, and my hosts were most graciously circumspect when it came to their conversations. Aside from a few off-colour comments about being silenced and the greatness of Tevinter once it was reclaimed, they even refrained from much outright mockery.”

He looked up, meeting her gaze in the darkness. Or trying to; he was staring at her face and hoping he was succeeding in making eye-contact.

“We can only know what we know.” She said, tone soft and firm. She meant to collect information from the others who'd been around at the time to see if what they knew added up to more than what she had right now. Lavellan looked over to Iron Bull's lieutenant, tapping the knuckle of her right index finger against her chin as she thought.

“Krem, how many of the freed are with us tonight?” She gestured with her hand toward the encampment over Krem's shoulder.

He stirred where he sat, making a considering noise in the back of his throat. “A good number. Likely to dwindle tomorrow, depending on where they decide to go. They're all aware they won't be traveling with us for long.”

The Chargers weren't an escort service, at least at the moment, and they weren't advertising their named presence. They were mercenaries, good ones, and that there happened to be a number of freed slaves turning up in the wake of this 'unnamed' band of merry warriors on their jaunt across the Tevinter countryside was circumstantial. Truly.

Iron Bull's feelings regarding slavery had nothing to do with it.

Honest.

She nodded in acceptance of his answer. “Then we can see which of them is willing to speak with us between now and first light.” Who to approach? Perhaps Jenna, if the woman had stayed with them instead of already setting off on her own. Or the two elves from the wagon? “Are both elves who'd been kept with Dorian still in camp?”

Bull grunted, answering much as Krem responded with his own affirmative. “Not sure that the fever's broken for the one. The talking one asked if he was going to be allowed to go his own way.”

“What'd you tell him?”

Krem shrugged. “That it was up to the Boss.”

She exhaled in a sharp snort. They were leaving the matter for her, for all she wasn't officially boss of anyone at the moment. Lavellan understood the whys. Dorian needed to be back and visible in the Magisterium as soon as possible, and Bull had to be back across the border. That left her with her network here in Tevinter, allies amoung all races and in all stations of life. The one best placed to follow through on investigating, aiding Dorian and her own efforts at the same time. The network she and her friends had been building since the dissolving of the Inquisition was structured so that any one member couldn't inadvertently reveal the whole. It was a gracious nod to Solas and the Agents of Fen-Harel, who operated in similar ways, as well as a nod to Sera and the Red Jennies. No member of her quiet alliance stood alone, even if they didn't know all those who stood with them.

Loyalty had to mean something.

“It's worth asking what they've seen. Even if what they know is lacking, people pick up on more than they realise.” Iron Bull's arms were crossed over his chest, expression inscrutable even to her in the starlight. “Talking about what happened may expose details they weren't even aware they picked up on.” Which would make him a good person to speak with them, or even Harding, but neither one was a viable option at the moment.

Which meant Lavellan would need – and want – to handle it on her own.

“As you say.” Accepting the suggestion for what it was, she pushed up to her feet. Stretching her arms overhead and arching her back as she rolled up onto the balls of her feet, she shot her friends a dry grin. “No time like the present. I'll see if... what's his name. Promise? Promus?”

Iron Bull inclined his head forward in a nod. It was the name he'd caught from the elf earlier that day as well. She nodded in turn, continuing to speak.

“I'll see what Promus has to share. Krem, are he and the ill elf over by the sick-tents?”

“Yes. I set them up in mine, right next to the rest of the lot. I'll show you.” He stood, handing off his blanket to Iron Bull. “Here you go, Chief. You look about ready to shiver out of your big grey hide.”

Iron Bull snorted. “Hah! Here I was thinking it's almost balmy out tonight. Careful, Krem. Treat a man like a pack mule once and you'll start learning how hard he kicks.” Krem shot him a shadowed grin as he dodged the playful sweep of Iron Bull's foot, the whole exchange relatively quiet. Lavellan was almost tempted into smiling at their antics, glad for any relief from the grim reality that haunted her waking moments.

She refrained, falling in step with Krem as they left Iron Bull and Dorian to converse in lowered voices. The melodic rumble of both her friends conversing in the darkness behind them faded into a hypnotic ebb and flow she shut out, listening for the other sounds flitting through the night. Krem kept quiet as he lead her toward his co-opted tent, signaling to the Charger sitting watch by its entrance once they were in clear sighting distance. He leaned in close to Lavellan, tipping his head to the tied down tent flap. _In there._

“I'll be right out here, Boss. Whistle if you need anything.”

“Would hooting suffice? I'm a terrible whistler.” She curled her lips up into a sideways grin.

He snorted, taking up position to the side of the tent flap as he waved her on. “Whatever you like. _Who_ am I to complain?”

Lavellan shook her head, banishing the smile from her face. She flicked a finger against the taunt tent flap to announce herself, calling out a quiet question as she ducked inside the dark tent. “How're things holding up in here?”

The stench of sweat and sickness hit her as she paused to give her eyes time to adjust to the darker interior. No scent of bile, none of the tang of blood, no acrid bitterness of urine. All things considered, not as bad as it could be.

She couldn't tell if Promus shared that opinion. She assumed he was the shadowed figure she saw kneeling at the side of someone bundled into borrowed blankets. At her entrance, he'd gone still, head craned around to watch her. When she came no closer, he returned to his careful application of a damp cloth over the ailing elf's forehead. He answered after a pause that lingered for a moment too long.

“Fever's still burning. Doesn't feel as hot.”

The sick elf moved, a spastic jerk of limbs mostly confined within the blankets surrounding them. Promus' fingers pressed down on the cloth on their forehead, keeping it in place.

“Might be wishful thinking. We managed to get some willow-bark tea down earlier, so it might not just be wishful.”

He leaned in, turning one ear toward the sick elf to listen as they mumbled in their fever haze. They subsided as he set to wiping cooler water over their cheeks with small, smooth motions. Lavellan wondered at how often he may have tended to the ill in the past.

“Have you eaten?”

He didn't answer, seeming intent on his task. She settled in to wait, letting her eyes fall to watching the sick elf. She reached out to tuck the blankets better around their lower legs after a minute or so passed in silence. It was enough to jar Promus into responding, for all he didn't turn to face her.

“One of the mercenaries brought travel cakes and water. For drinking,” he clarified, gesturing to the bucket of water resting by his knee to differentiate. He draped the extra length of cloth over its lip, flicking droplets of water from his fingers into the bucket before he spoke again. “Thank you. The Chargers continue to show unexpected kindnesses.”

She kept her attention on the third elf in the cramped confines of Krem's tent. “Providing people with a chance is the least anyone might do for them.”

“More than many would do.” He fell quiet, settling back on his heels and allowing the steadier breathing of the sick elf to fill the silence. “They won't be recovered by the morning,” he said at length. “Or the one after.” He left the unasked question hanging between them. _What will you do?_

“Mm,” she said, “I don't think they're the only one unfit for a long journey.” She let her own pause linger. “You're familiar with the Silent Plains?”

“The location?” He canted his head to the side. “It's difficult to miss. Much like its history.”

She breathed out in a soft huff of amusement. Considering the size of the region called the Silent Plains, he was correct. Anyone taking the main thorough-ways in Tevinter would be hard pressed to miss the Silent Plains. The standing Imperial Highway skirted right around it. While the hundreds of years had passed since the end of the Second Blight, the region was still not fully rehabilitated. It was difficult to imagine it as anything other than ravaged plains it'd become in the aftermath, even now.

“There's a settlement on the outskirts I'll be heading toward in the morning. Those unable or unwilling to head elsewhere will be welcome to join me. Present parties included.” She gestured toward the sick elf, keeping her tone of voice conversational. Promus bowed his head to acknowledge her words. When he ventured no other questions, she put forth one of her own, voice pitched lower than before. “Do you know them?”

Promus hesitated, shaking his head after a heartbeat. “No. I'd never seen them before I was...” he pursed his lips, straightening where he sat. “Before I was handed off to the group you encountered.”

She nodded, taking in his answer. The pause before admitting he'd been handed off had her considering how best to broach the subject of his capture by them. Focusing on the third person in the tent might be easier for him, to start. “They were sick the whole time?”

He grunted. “Yes. More lucid at first. Not that they talked much anyway. I don't blame them.”

He paused, squaring his shoulders, eyes searching for Lavellan's in the dark interior of the tent. She could almost feel him come to some sort of decision. She didn't have to wait long to learn what it was.

“You were the Inquisitor.”

Not a surprising conclusion, if he knew enough to piece together the pieces made apparent by both her name, affiliations, and the state of her left arm. Funny what people chose to remember about her these days. She relaxed her shoulders, letting the statement flow over and through her.

“I was, yes. Though considering the Inquisition is years disbanded, I carry no such title now.” She kept her tone of voice neutral, conversational with her next question.

“Are you an agent of Fen'Harel, Promus?” It seemed unlikely, but unlikely didn't mean impossible.

Promus was startled into a sharp snort, almost derisive. “No. No, I may be many things, but not one of his. Never one of his.”

She watched him run one hand over his head, pushing back stray tendrils of hair to tuck them neatly behind his ear. Lavellan didn't have to make a pretense of surprise at the understand vehemence in his voice. “Why is that?”

“Why is it that I deny affiliation, or why is it I'm so certain of my denial?”

He shifted as the fevered elf groaned, trying to twist out from under their blanket. His plunged the cloth into the bucket and wrung out with a muffled rush. He continued speaking while exchanging cloths on the sick elf's forehead.

“Or why is it that I know about them and how they relate to you? People talk.” His voice dropped down into something softer as he spoke. It may have been in kindness to their bedridden companion. It may have been to make what he said difficult to discern.

“There were rumours following the dissolving of your Inquisition, when the attacks from the Qunari started to intensify. Comparisons made between the lower number of escaped slaves from Tevinter to the quiet exodus of the elves in the rest of Thedas over the last few years. Fen'Harel is a jest here, a fiction of overactive imaginations when the very present and real danger of the Qunari breaks in relentless waves against our doorstep.” He draped the old cloth over the bucket's edge, turning his face toward her once more. “I don't believe it's wise to dismiss him. Even if he has, in his ways, dismissed a great many of us.”

 _More so than anyone might imagine,_ she thought to herself, stomach tightening into a knot. She had to swallow past the sorrow tightening her throat, forcing it back down. _Now isn't the time._

“I imagine he's dismissed more than he realises.” She knew she was neatly dodging the point, but it hurt, feeling that constriction around her chest and the ache that accompanied a loss she couldn't rectify. She tightened her fingers into a fist, unconscious of her prosthetic likewise betraying her tension with a quiet groan of metal and leather. “A world of possibilities no one person should be able to decide may be dismissed.”

There was too much of her drive behind those tightly spoken words; she made herself relax again, rolling her shoulders with a soft sigh and a softer exhalation. “We cannot afford to be as dismissive.”

“No,” he said, resting his fingers on the cloth draped over the sick elf's brow. “Not to him, nor to the other threats around us. Big and small.”

She was under the impression that he almost smiled from the upswing in his tone of voice and the way he held his head canted _just_ to the side. From what she could see of his expression, he looked worried. It was an odd, shadow ridden contrast.

“Mind telling me about some of those other threats?”

“The big ones or the small ones?” His pause made the question earnest instead of rhetorical.

“Oh, whichever strikes your fancy. So long as we eventually talk about whatever dragons are lurking about these parts..”

He inclined his head toward her, sitting back as the breathing of the third person in the tent became less laboured. Promus gestured to the fitfully sleeping elf. “Then we can start with them. Are you Dalish?”

Lavellan made a motion with her good hand. “Yes, one aspect of them. Is that the threat?”

A shake of his head preceded his words. “Only to people who fear what they do not know.”

“In other words, most people.”

“True, but it's not fear of the 'wild elves' or their independence called freedom that worries me. Tell me, how much of the ancient tongue does any one clan have? How much of that information is shared commonly amoung all the clans in a region?”

It took her a moment to decide if this was another question being asked in earnest, and not as a prelude to a statement Promus wanted to make on his own. Her stomach twisted, not comfortable discussing these things with a stranger. She pushed past it; there were certain secrets she'd long lost the luxury of keeping. This was one of them.

“More than most know or would believe. ”

“Enough to speak fluently?”

She paused. There was enough that she still didn't want to admit, a mixture of fierce pride in her people tempered by the last few years and a deepened understanding of who they'd been, and who they might be if they survived. A defensiveness and an ache from years past constricted in a band around her throat. She was used to that particular feeling by now, learning how to navigate human courts of intrigue in several countries.

Her pride could remain an internal affair.

“No. We can speak solely in Elvish, but not freely in that tongue, though there are those who would have you believe otherwise.”

He nodded. “That fits with what I believed. Would it be fair to say that most of the Dalish would only speak in fragments of Elvish if they were disoriented? That they might mix the common tongue and what they know of Elvish?”

“Based on my experiences, yes, that'd be a fair statement.” Her eyes flicked toward the sleeping elf. “What are you getting at?”

“Only this.” He shifted, turning to reach over and tuck the edge of the blanket beneath the sick elf's shoulder. “They haven't spoken a word in the common tongue. Even in their moments of greater lucidity, all I've heard them speak has been in Elvish.”

He fell silent, searching his memory for words that his tongue gave better due than she would have expected from a Tevinter slave. Prejudices she knew better than to take to heart, and more evidence of another she needed to acknowledge and break down.

“ _Tel'uthenera, ir tu'then_.” He had a delicate accent, sampling his way through the words. “Almost as if they wanted to reassure themselves that they were awake. That this wasn't a dream.” Promus breathed in, then out, firmly brushing sweat and water soaked hair off the sick elf's cheek. Over their _vallaslin_ , dark against the paler shade of their skin.

“They may be Dalish. A Keeper, or a First.” The people who possessed the most knowledge of their ancient tongue.

“They may.” His face turned toward her, expression difficult to discern in the dark. “Or they may not be. Could you imagine any Clan allowing their Keeper or First to be captured and carted off into the Tevinter Imperium alive?”

“Not easily, but it isn't impossible.” Still, as Lavellan straightened and looked over the bundled elf, she had to wonder if they were, perhaps, a product of a vastly different time. She knew their markings as a fanciful rendition of June's. Those implications weren't unheard of, not from what Harding had been indicating with reports out of the Tirashan forests, but it would still be incredible. Ancient Elves weren't a product of history alone. No, if others were awakening... they were nothing if not prime suspects and targets for Solas and his agents. If Abelas had indeed headed in the direction of the Tirashan forests on a faint hope of finding any other remnants of a thousands years collapsed empire, then perhaps there were remnants to find.

Remnants from more than just Mythal's followers. Possible keys for saving Solas from himself. To find some way to save her world from an incredibly powerful, resigned mage determined to destroy it to bring back a world lost several thousand years ago, and all of its potential corruptions.

Thoughts she tucked carefully away as she made herself speak.

“These are questions better asked when they've recovered, either way.” She gestured with her clamp-hand, relaxing so that the prongs opened as her arm moved. “At the moment, I'm more interested in you. Who are you? Where are you from? Why were you in that caravan?” She turned her gesture into a shrug, both apologetic and unrelenting as she leaned forward, planting her good hand on her knee.

He seemed to have expected the turn in conversation, settling back on his heels, one hand resting on the lip of the bucket.

“I was born and raised here in Tevinter. I am... I was a slave belonging to the Anguis family.” There was a quiet touch of bitterness to his tone, one which was otherwise remarkably neutral and matter of fact. “My duties primarily focused on attending to the needs of their heir.”

She knew the name as part of her study of the different families within the Magisterium. They didn't lean much one way or the other in current politics, so were often taken as watching for favourable alliances as they came along. Their fortunes had been revitalised over the last handful of decades due to contestable ties with the Dwarven Embassy and the Merchant's Guild.

 _What did they trade in?_ Lavellan tried to remember. _Not lyrium, but metals and goods of some kind... ornaments and clothing? Dyes._ She seemed to remember something about inks and dyes.

“The Anguis family's involved in some sort of trading?”

Promus moved his hands to rest them on his knees, fingers splayed, smoothing out the fabric there. He opened his mouth to speak, particulars of his expression lost to shadow. “They are. Specialising in clothing and accessories of the magical and non-magical varieties. Clothing, jewelry, charms, fabrics.”

Fabrics might be why she was remembering something about dyes. Regardless, that was more information to keep in mind, secondary to his reaction to the mention of Fen'Harel's agents. She waved that aside, making a noise of acceptance of his answer before cutting back to her point.

“A personal family slave who ended up on a Venatori slave trader caravan. What changed?”

His silence held for a few heartbeats before he breathed out, a soft, tired sound pulled from deep in his chest. “ _Everything_. Is it dramatic to claim as much?” It was his first rhetorical question that evening. “I believe it was around two months ago that the Anguis family's heir was relocating to one of the newer family estates before her next session at the University began. I'm not sure of the dates anymore.”

He straightened a fraction, breathing in deep enough to be audible. “I was sent ahead to ensure the estate was ready for her arrival. That itself wasn't uncommon. I've been responsible for similar duties before. The problem was she never arrived.”

Lavellan waited through his silence, prompting him to continue through a noise of acknowledgment that she was listening.

“I sent a missive to Magister Anguis when her daughter was a full sevenday late. By the end of the third sevenday I had no response from the Magister or her daughter. I was preparing to return to the city when the slavers came, dressed like raiders from further south. They were well armed, _too_ well armed, and had several mages in their number. We were corralled and contained within a matter of hours.”

His fingers curled in toward his palms, leaving him with fisted hands resting on his thighs.

“You have to understand, in cases like these, one only expects the more valuable slaves to survive. The ones who will fetch a decent price at market, those with strength or skill or youth or beauty. Most of those slaves with me at the estate at the time were past their prime. Decent servants, adept at taking care of the grounds around the estate, but not irreplaceable. Not particularly valuable to anyone but the Anguis family.”

The tension in his voice was almost audible. Lavellan held herself still in the face of it, feeling resigned and expectant, as if she stood poised on the edge of a knife's blade. Her own undercurrent of anger, cold and resolved, wondered yet again at how people could do this to each other, with or without the pretense of calling it slavery. She resisted lifting her good hand to her face to trace lines that had been gone for years, their original meaning lost to the eons. Freedom was a concept that was not content to remain unchanged and unchallenged.

Promus went on, voice growing softer, a strange contrast to the clipped nature of his speech.

“They hamstrung all but a handful of us. Just one leg, so that we were hobbled. Like horses. So we couldn't run off on them.”

He tucked his chin in toward his chest, staring down at his fisted hands.

“Five of us were left whole. I didn't know it at the time, but I suspect they must have known what I was. The other four were amoung the most skilled workers on the estate. The understudy to the head gardener, the handsome middling age cook, the youngest stable-girl, and another of the older house servants. We were required to care for the rest after they healed them. Before they were moved off the estate.”

Lavellan narrowed her eyes, quashing the sick feeling his story of such casual, calculated cruelty stirred within her chest. “These people were shipping everyone off?”

“Mm. They'd attacked, crippled, and barely healed almost every slave on a magister's country estate. We were a resource they were planning to use.” Promus's too neutral tone was belied by the hunch to his shoulders, the way he almost seemed to curl around himself here in the confines of a too-small tent, stifled with the heat and scent of the ailing. He wasn't untouched by what he spoke of, but he was fighting hard to remain distant.

“Over the course of the month that followed, groups were carted off in covered wagons. The five of us left uncrippled were being saved for later for... to take care of our fellows and our captors in turns. I managed to get another message out to Magister Anguis during that time. By then her daughter had been missing for... at least six weeks. Maybe two months. I'm not certain.”

He stopped his narrative to concentrate on breathing. It didn't seem to do him much good in the warm, cloying air of cramped tent. He didn't complain, simply swallowed and lifted one hand to pluck at the cloth draped over the bucket's edge.

“Magister Anguis arrived at the estate two weeks or so ago. Her most admiring supporters were with her, largely talented mages from the lower ranking families. Very loyal people. All human.” Not a surprise, not in Tevinter, but there was a reminder and underlying bitterness in his specification. _She sees only one variety of person on this world._ “All of them together were powerful enough to have brought the group of 'raiders' remaining to their knees. Instead, Anguis ordered them to stand down. She wished to _appraise_ the situation herself.”

He looked up, catching Lavellan's gaze in the dark. Politics were brutal no matter what realm. Heirs could be and were disposed of depending on the head of the household's whims or decisions reached in their political machinations. What they did with their own property wasn't considered noteworthy. The ties with the Venatori added an element that couldn't be ignored, but to anyone outside, it was that allegation that made Promus's testimony unsettling within Tevinter, not any of the rest.

That it might already be too late for all the people being treated like chattel did nothing to settle her state of mind. Especially when it was pointing toward a high potential for complicated, or at least demanding, blood magic and sacrifice.

“The raid was performed under her instruction.” She clarified, wanting to be sure she understood what he was saying.

“At least with her knowledge, though Magister Anguis is not a woman I would expect to operate under the instructions of another.” He carefully plunged the cloth into the bucket, leaving his hand under the surface of the water as he went on. “She complimented me on managing to get another letter out. On not leaving, even when she was sure that I would have managed, if I'd _applied_ myself. She told me not to worry.” He pulled the cloth up, using both his hands to wring it out. “She would be sending me along to where I was most needed before long.” He switched out the warmed cloth over the sick elf's forehead for the newly dampened one.

“Which is when you found yourself bound and in that prison wagon?”

He tipped his head toward her. “Yes. A day or two after I was... delivered, they brought this one in as well. I thought they'd taken someone else they didn't want seen, to have kept them like they were, much like with Magister Pavus. Though I didn't recognise the magister until he had named himself.” His fingers twitched, empty hands pressed back down against his thighs.

“Do you believe Magister Anguis was aware of the Venatori's abduction of Dorian?”

He held himself still, considering his answer. “Yes,” he said at length. “However, while I believe she was working with the pathetic remnants of the Venatori, I don't believe she was involved with Magister Pavus's abduction. It's not her way of politicking.” Promus shook his head, as if dismissing her involvement with one aspect was something he could physically shake off. When he looked back in her direction, his voice was more firm than before.

“I said earlier that Fen'Harel and his agents shouldn't be dismissed, but that they're not the only concern we have. I believe that the group Magister Anguis manipulates is one such concern, and that some of the remaining Venatori are being used by her as much as they were using her to arrange whatever Magister Pavus's abduction was meant to achieve.”

“Based on what? Her actions are both disgusting and reprehensible, but how that makes her a more pressing concern than the agents of Fen'Harel or the present fighting with the Qunari is difficult for me to see.” She leaned forward, intent on Promus. She was withholding judgment on if she was being played for the fool; the possibility that he was a plant meant to ferret out information felt like a long shot. Could he indeed work for Solas regardless of his voiced derision? It was possible. Many things were possible. She'd decide how probable it was after hearing him out.

Lavellan was careful to give people that courtesy when she could afford to do so.

“Enlighten me, Promus. What do you believe is going on with Magister Anguis?”

He faced her, shoulders set back, gaze level in the dark. “I believe that's a conversation better had when we're at the settlement you mentioned earlier.” He fell into silence.

They watched each other in the darkness for seconds that stretched into minutes, punctuated only by the breathing of the unnamed elf lying wrapped in fever dreams before them. Neither moved, and for a time, neither spoke. Eventually she choose to relent, breathing out in a soft snort with a small, almost amused shake of her head.

She could respect his kind of resolve. It didn't make it any less annoying, but if nothing else, she'd learned patience over the years.

“I look forward to that, then. You'll continue attending to this person until then?”

Promus turned his head enough to see the bundled form of the elf at his side. His shrug was small, a motion almost lost to the dark. “Are you asking, or ordering?”

“Requesting, if you like, but only that.”

“Mm.” Promus fell into another brief silence. “Will we have use of one of the horses again tomorrow?”

It wasn't exactly an acceptance, but it was close enough. She shifted back, moving her legs and feet to start restoring better circulation. Pins and needles prickled along her soles. She grunted, moving back toward the tent flap and the tantalizing scent of fresher night air. “I'll make sure of it. Until tomorrow, Promus.”

“Until tomorrow, Inquisitor.”

She paused with her clamp-hand on the tent flap's tie-down. “Lavellan, if you please. I haven't been Inquisitor for some time now.”

“As you say... Lavellan.”

His tone was so carefully neutral she wasn't sure what, if any, emotion she should pin to that particular pause before her clan name. It could wait; she had others tasks yet tonight. As she emerged backward into the crisper night air, she breathed in deep, noting that Krem had kept casually alert to the side of the entrance.

“Enjoy your conversation, Boss?”

She tied the tent flap back into place, straightening with a cracking of her knees and shoulders. “It was enlightening. Are you needed elsewhere? I'd hate to keep you from more important tasks.”

“We're covered quite nicely. I'll be meeting up with the Chief again before dawn, but if you need an extra pair of eyes until then, you only need to ask.”

She was tired, but tired was a state of existence anymore, her rest was too often disturbed by dreams that left her feeling more worn out than simple insomnia. Lavellan massaged the back of her neck, gesturing toward the encampment with her prosthetic.

“Does that include an extra set of ears? I'd like to try speaking with as many of the freed with us who aren't asleep. Like Bull said, people don't even know the extent of what they remember or notice until they're speaking about it.” Both her arms fell back to her sides, her hand propped on her hip. “It doesn't seem like many are resting except as exhaustion demands.”

“They know they're not safe. Short rests when the exhaustion wins out is about all any of them can afford, I image.” Krem stretched his arms in front of him, rolling his shoulders so that they cracked. He'd had his own hasty retreat out of Tevinter territory in years past. She had a feeling he spoke with a degree of familiarity with their situations, for all his had been different. “May as well see what we can stir up through talking. I know the Chief will be wanting to hear all about it as we're heading South again. You're still planning on visiting your friends down by the Plains?”

They set off around the cluster of sick tents, nodding to the scattered Charger or two they saw keeping peaceful watch inside their camp. She found this conversation easier than what she'd been saying back in that sick tent, or what was waiting for her with those who might be willing to speak from amoung the freed.

“Yes, I am. Hospitality is worth accepting, no matter the strangeness of the presentation.” She flashed him a lopsided grin. “They're really not so bad.”

He feigned a shudder, gesturing toward a handful of people huddled under several blankets. “I remember Stone Bear Hold. I'm glad it's you enjoying this hospitality. I'll take my days of camping and the occasional tavern once we're across the border. Fewer animal furs that way.” She caught a flash of teeth in the starlight, grateful for Krem's low-key amusement.

“Depending on the tavern. Or who you're traveling with. Though I can't imagine anyone here turning down a few warm fur about now.”

“No,” he said, more solemn at the thought. “I don't imagine they would.”

The next hour or so was spent speaking with those willing or awake enough to talk, gathering accounts of cool nights and hot days, water withheld or wasted, minimal supplies, and forced long marches. There'd been some end goal, some destination that the slave traders and the Venatori knew of, but few of them seemed to be certain where that was, other than some rendezvous in Solas. It was still disconcerting to hear the city name and know people were speaking of the city and not the man.

By the time she was returning to where Dorian had failed to settle down and rest, she was feeling mentally and physically exhausted. She hoped it'd be enough to guarantee her a night without dreams. At the same time, she hoped she'd be able to dream, that she'd be able to perhaps catch sight of the lone wolf who watched from the distance in the Beyond. That she'd find herself in another one-way conversation with a man who couldn't bring himself to give up on the thin hope that sustained them both; that she would help find the means to stop him, and that he would not become the monster he believed he needed to become.

Propping her head up on the saddle of the mare they'd ridden that afternoon, Lavellan's fingers unbuckled the straps of her artificial limb. She tucked it carefully into her saddle bag, sighing under her breath as she massaged the muscles underneath. Her shoulder ached, a line of steel tension under her skin that stretched up to her neck, but that wasn't so much the fault of her prosthetic's harness as it was her own inability to relax of late. A few minutes of firm massage restored enough circulation to have her aching in a pleasant way. Soon enough, the exhaustion and her trust in the Chargers standing sentry pulled her under into sleep, blanket pulled tight around her.

She wasn't so lucky as to escape dreaming that night. Tevinter's connection to the Fade, what her people also called the Beyond, was one where spirits of all kinds teemed. They wove a messy tapestry of events both forgotten and remembered, albeit as incoherently as the spirits themselves. With how Solas had spoken about ruins as being places of great insight for those who went looking, she'd at first been fooled into believing that those sites with no visible ruins would not, in turn, host a heavy spirit presence.

It was an incorrect presumption. Battles weren't always fought in buildings or against fortresses of some kind; people died on battlefields near nothing of apparent consequence much as they did anywhere else. Tevinter's own unsettled history reflected in the Fade, and when she came to awareness there, it was to muffled sounds of battle in the distance.

The landscape was different, overlaid trees and pathways that had since been recut or fallen or overgrown with the passing of millennia. She found herself barefoot, as felt right, wearing keepers robes and a deep blue sash draped over her shoulder. Her hair was braided through with flowers. When she reached up with her left hand, transparent, green fingers brushed over fading flowers. The memory of mountain meadows traveled through in her youth, of more recent times spent trekking through the Hinterlands, wash over her; scents that were not truly within the Fade, but carried in by her as she walked through this convoluted memory of forest.

She felt the difference once she'd left the immediate dreamscape, the emerald green of trees giving way to the hazy green of sky in the Fade. Craggy rock thrust upward, grasping fingers reaching toward floating islands spun in gentle tides of air. In the distance, as always, she could spy the form of the Black City; looming high and silent to her ears, a darkness that all but the most arrogant and dangerous avoided.

Smaller spirits, little more than wisps of light, bobbed and danced across a pool of water cascading into a waterfall that flowed upward, to an island seven meters higher. On this near shore she could spy a burning ship, flames a lazy recollection of heat, smaller spirits dancing closer than away again, luring the memory of flames to dance along with them. The sounds of battle continued in the distance, hinting at pauses and inflections of her own remembered battles. She could see the lights and indications of where that battle was being fought, turning away and walking in another direction.

Tevinter carried both the familiar and the unfamiliar to her. It'd been a necessary gamble, and while it was also dangerous, she didn't regret her decision to seek allies amoung those in this nation. Being open to all the possibilities that brought along meant her network was no less varied than it had been before. They hadn't the same numbers, and wouldn't be amassing impressive armies to march without good reason and time beforehand, but they were not as corrupt. That had perhaps been Solas's last gift, and his challenge. She could have combed through the ranks of the Inquisition, culled out those who weren't loyal, hunt down the corruption and turning her eyes toward Tevinter with that political power at her back.

She'd chosen otherwise. What she'd promised to the women she respected and had come to admire, regardless and perhaps because of their differences, meant choosing not to fear letting go. She might not be a Keeper, and might not be Inquisitor, but she was herself. Lavellan, using her Clan name as if it were her whole identity, and perhaps it was.

Lavellan, a woman away from any clan, now walking up a narrow, switchback path cut into the side of a cliff in the Fade. Passing the warped shaping of what might have been something dwarven half carved into the stone face of the cliff, or might have been of human artistry, or elven. Her ghostly green hand illuminated where she moved with a soft, diffuse light. She resisted running her fingers along the stone. She wouldn't quite feel it if she did, and her hand might pass through, depending on how hard she concentrated. She'd been learning what she could manipulate in the Fade to what ends. Reforming the hand she'd lost was one of her first exercises. It was also potentially one of the most dangerous. That much mana coalesced in obvious form invited the attention of the denizens of the Fade.

She welcomed that, too. Demons, those corrupted spirits, or perhaps simply corrupted in the eyes of those who couldn't accept the intricacies of their own natures, were the ones to first step forward toward such things. Lavellan didn't need to be a mage as powerful as her lover to be considered powerful in and of herself; to be considered desirable for consumption, possession, all the countless possibilities that weren't partnerships but surrenderings to the spirits.

 _You know it's not the only way._ From the Avaar, from her own people's traditions, from the sickening sight of spirits bound against their wills to slave away for Magisters, on the premise of being too simple minded to be left to their own devices. More harm was done on the claim of assistance rendered to “lesser” beings in Tevinter than its ruling classes chose to acknowledge.

It was not so different in effect than many other nations in Thedas; it was only different in the degrees and bald-face acceptance of their perpetuating slavery over thousands of years.

She crested the cliffside, looking back the way she'd come. The abandoned ship continued to burn in memory, and she saw spirits in jagged remnants fighting around the far curve of what might have been a lake. The Fade didn't need to be consistent; even as she watched, the shoreline was shrinking, turning darker as the memory of blood stained its waters.

“It's a broken fragment of a memory. Stirred up by something happening on the waking side of the Veil.”

She knew that voice. Knew, even as she turned to face him, that since it belonged to the man she loved, hearing it now meant he was nowhere nearby tonight. In all the years since he left, Solas had not once spoken to her within the Fade. He'd never allowed her or himself to come close, sacrificing their relationship because he deigned to know best how not to hurt himself. He had said it was for her sake, too. It was selfish of him to presume he could better understand her heart than she did, when he'd never asked.

He was a coward in so many ways, and brave in so many others. She paused, regarding the spirit who had taken on his form, looking at her with clear eyes and the hint of a smile on his lips. He met her gaze before his eyes shifted to see beyond her, looking down toward the milling figures on the shore. Lavellan tried to pin down which spirit had thought it was a good ploy to wear his form. Had to examine herself and wonder what she was calling on so hard. _Hope. Fear. Determination. Wanting. Longing._

She didn't return his smile, merely braced herself, lifting her good hand. She presented him with her palm, fingers kept together, a gesture and sign for him to stop.

“Don't.”

He canted his head to the side, opening his mouth to speak. She repeated herself, using greater emphasis.

“ _Don't._ I know my own heart. I will not have you mock me, nor will I allow you to mock him.”

Solas-who-was-not-Solas held her gaze, both astute and cunning and, more misleadingly, empathetic in his expression. “ _Ma vhenan_ –“

Her hand cut down diagonally in front of her, eyes level with those of the spirit wearing her lover's guise. “ _My_ heart, Spirit, not yours.” She paused for a half second to allow her declaration to set in. “I will ask you once to show your true form. I will not ask again.”

“Is that you asking?” He sounded playful, eyes serious even while his lips quirked up in a small, private amusement, one he was inviting her to share. “In the Fade, we reflect what we see of ourselves. We're malleable, but only as malleable as we can dream ourselves to be.” He reached out, and she brought her ghostly limb up to intercede. Catching hold of his hand and letting the soft, green light diffuse between the both of them; seeing his fingers through the palm of her hand while keeping her energy firmly to herself.

It was difficult. She saw the spark of knowing in his eyes as she switched hold of his hand to her good hand. She held on to this impostor's hand, poised as if to ask him to dance, recalling an evening years behind her. The sounds of political battle were as present then as the clashes and cries of physical blows echoed up to them now. This wasn't Solas, but this spirit was more solid, and more present, than he'd been for a long, long time. Lavellan wouldn't deny herself the knowledge that it hurt.

“This is no dream, Spirit.” She tugged on his hand, bringing it up toward her chest as she stepped forward. As she envisioned the shape of a hilt in her absent hand, forming her energy and the mana she could pull toward herself as she moved. Her lips brushed against the knuckles of this false Solas, left hand clutching the length of its summoned sword. The mana formed to her will, a steady thrumming she felt through her body. Through what passed as her body in this place of spirits and dreams. “And you are no love of mine.”

The spirit smiled, shaking its head, so achingly familiar in those small gestures that she remembered of his. Some nights she worried that she was losing all those, like she'd lost the cadence of her Keeper's voice when she was sharing the old stories. Losing those inconsequential details like so many grains of sand falling from her hands in a desert wind. Still there, but lost, for the moment, in the immenseness of time.

She could guess at what shape this spirit wore in truth. Knowing herself, she could guess. She wanted Solas. She wanted a future for all of them. She wanted him to see that future, with or without her by his side. She wanted them to be free, in a way he still wasn't, in a way not only the elves weren't in this day and age. A way that would not be solved in trying to turn back the clock, force the annihilation of several empires for the uncertain decadence of one that had already collapsed under its own weight. As she tipped her left hand forward, pressing her mana-formed sword to the throat of the impostor hard enough to draw what passed for blood, she knew she wanted to see that future even if it meant seeing it alone.

Until that point, she'd fight her hardest to have it any other way.

“Reveal yourself.” It was a command and a force of will applied at the spirit's own magic, unraveling some of the illusion it was weaving with an inexorable, seductive force. The spirit went still, smile fading a degree as its perfect mimicry allowed for even the beating of a pulse at its throat. Then he laughed, that full throated, chesty sound she missed. Her chest ached as his eyes flashed violet and his form shivered and melted away.

“That isn't what you want, Inquisitor.” The voluptuous form of a Desire demon emerged, exposed skin a beautiful blend of violets and mauve, elegant horns jutting from its forehead and spiraling back over its skull. Demon or spirit? She made herself let go of the obvious association, forced herself not to presume, even while she kept her blade steady on the spirit's neck. “It isn't what you need.” The Desire spirit's countless, intricate necklaces chimed as it shifted, bringing one clawed, elegant hand up to run a finger along the energy blade's edge. It's violet eyes never left her own.

“What I want is beyond your ability to give.” Lavellan held her blade steady, the spirit's essence bleeding from its neck and trailing along the edge of her sword, mingling with her own mana. Opalescent whorls followed the edge where its finger trailed, like oil swirling across a puddle on the street. She pressed her lips into a thin line. “And has little enough to do with what I need. Begone, Spirit. I don't have the patience or the tolerance to deal with you tonight.”

The spirited stilled, watching her with those unblinking violet eyes. At last it chuckled, tipping its head away from where her sword rested against its neck. “As you wish, Inquisitor,” it said, eyes half closed. “If that's what you desire for tonight.” As suddenly as it had come, it faded, seeming to dissipate in a wash of energy. What felt like fingers trailed over her cheek as it left. Lavellan kept herself from flinching, but the frown that tugged her lips downward prompted a chiming laugh that lingered long after the Desire spirit – demon – had departed.

Lavellan stood alone, shoulders tense, staring out over the shifting landscape. It was some indeterminately short time, or perhaps an inconceivably long one, before she dismissed the sword she'd summoned. She didn't trust the spirit to have left so easily, but there was no sense of it returning, or any other spirit deciding to take its chance in the interim. It was an unsettling calm that settled over where she stood, watching. It wouldn't last for long.

Below, the incoherent battle continued to be fought, spirits shifting form and alliance and sensibilities as easily as the mind could slip from one thought to the next. As her own mind slipped from thought to thought until true sleep finally took her beyond even the reach of the Fade, and she surrendered herself to that blissful quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's been finished for months (... almost a year) but got lost in beta-block heck, until I finally went back over it and decided to get it up. Updates are going to be slower, but I do have an idea of the arc I want here, and will be happy seeing it through to its conclusion.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please excuse the inevitable liberties taken with Tevinter and the rest of Thedas on this journey.


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